DAILY BREAD

Some new change that's been gnawing away at my daily routine and equilibrium. My favourite baker has shut up shop and her bakery has been taken over by new management.
Bakeries are probably the only establishment to outnumber pharmacies in a country where bread in plastic bags that is designed to last longer than 24 hours is relegated to some obscure back aisle of the supermarket. And choosing the right one is a tricky process. Bakery A does great pain au chocolat, but the croissants are too salty. Bakery B has superb buttery croissants but the chausson pommes is too gluey. Bakery C has lovely crusty baguettes, but their brioche isn't sweet enough. And even when they get it all fairly right, they also have to be NICE. You visit them every other day, so someone a bit more amiable than just tolerable is always welcome. My last local baker at Saint Ouen was fairly sour, and her pain au chocolats were underwhelming. So I was chuffed, upon moving, to find a lovely bakery very close to us, with great produce, not too expensive, and a charming funny lady running the place. It was with great dismay that I saw the 'closed - change of ownership' sign up in place a couple of weeks ago. It has recently reopened, and I have popped in once. But everything is more expensive now, the resident cat and kitten have departed, and strangely enough - I feel like a bit of a traitor.

SUMMER IN PROVENCE III

The wild Camargues horse is found only on the watery plains and salt marshes of southeastern France.

And now a quick tour around the Arles and the Camargues region, close to the Mediterranean coast - where bicycles were ridden in the wrong direction, I watched some men chasing bulls in an ancient Roman arena, wild flamingos were seen feeding in the depressingly polluted saltmarshes and I got a tan on my lower back that turned my skin a kind of deep mahogany colour that I did not know was possible...

SUMMER IN PROVENCE II

Such a cliché image, but I couldn't resist! What's Provence without a field of lavender after all...?

SUMMER IN PROVENCE

Old chateau converted into an open air cinema, Groeux les Bains

I've just returned from a short summer holiday in Provence (which, at this time of year, is overwhelmingly dominated by blonde Dutch families with their requisite 2.4 children in tow). I was so happy to revisit many of the spots I checked out during my backpacker adventure down here a year ago, plus a couple of new discoveries. I absolutely adore Provence. If I thought I could get work down this way I'd move here in a red hot minute. The pine trees, the oak forests, the cicadas, the apricots, the Roman architecture. Idyllic doesn't even begin to cover it.

30! HELP!

This is it.
The big three oh.
Had to happen eventually right? I remember as a teenager that I could never possibly image EVER being so old as 30. Well, it happened. All I had to do was wait, time did the rest.